This is such a beautiful, mystic little book.

I am always griping that I don't read enough YA in translation since the publishing industry centers US/UK/Aus. narratives above all else. Finally, my prayers were answered with not only an ARC of a YA novel translated from Swedish, but one by an Indigenous (Sámi) author writing about expansive queer identity.

Just read it. It's lyrical, thought provoking, tender (and narrated by Michael Crouch if audiobooks are your thing).

I wasn't expecting to love this story so much, and even though this review is so so late, I can't imagine not wanting to read this book over and over again.

Ánte is such a wonderful character and I loved reading his first brush with love and struggling with what it means to love and grow up and be responsible.

just ugh. I love him.

What a remarkable debut!

The story centers Ànte, a 16-year-old boy who knows he will be a reindeer herder, just like his father. He also knows that he is gay. And those two things seem to be incompatible.
With a visceral writing style and emotive language, the author transports us into the mindset of this isolated boy who thinks he is utterly alone in this world, silently yearning for his friend and going through the motions of his life.
While many of Ànte's thoughts are taken up by his romantic feelings, it's not the only part of the story. We see some of the usual teenage group dynamics, dating and kissing, and messy relationship that defines those high school years without stretching them into disbelief. Ánte feels cornered and exploded and makes some mistakes but is allowed to grow and take responsibility.
We also see him buy a book pretty early on, it's about racial research on Indigenous populations in Europe. What was an accidental purchase becomes a sort of focal point of Ánte's emotions as he both realizes that his ancestors are included in those pages and that there are more things his family does not talk about. The book and its content come up again and again and work really well as a mirror for Ánte's emotional state and the pressure he feels to conform and fit in between those pages.

It's a quiet, gentle exploration of the ties that link people and history together, the want and need of community but also the rigidity of expectations and how much of a difference it makes to not be the first one to step outside the drawn lines.

While I'm happy where the story ends in regards to Ànte and his parents, the story does not lay all the groundwork for it to be totally believable - their change of mind feels more arbitrary than intentional and does not fit their characterization in the early chapters. I wished his uncle and his grandmother had played an even larger role as it would have fit well to help that element of the book feel more complete.

A look into Sami culture in a coming of age story of a young man coming to terms with his queerness. I thought this was beautifully written, would recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Can i say this story changed me as a person? I enjoyed reading this. As soon as I finished it, i recommended it to my friends and they loved it as well.

This book is a warm hug on a cold day. It’s a kiss on the forehead from someone you love. It’s holding hands for the first time with a crush. The prose is sparse but beautiful. It’s a queer, indigenous coming of age story that deals with cultural belonging and first love and navigating queerness in spaces that don’t necessarily feel welcoming. I adored this book.

A beautiful story of young queer love. There's lines of sheer poetry within "The sky was endless above them. Tiny twinkling spots in the vast darkness. A net of pearls." Atmospheric. Written by a 23-year-old Sámi debut novelist. I recommend this novel!

A unique, important and well written young adult novel translated from Swedish, about indigenous Sámi boy Ánte who lives a modern life in a small town, with the exception that his family are reindeer herders. Sámi life is steeped in a lot of tradition, as well as a history of prejudice and mistreatment.

Ánte is struggling with his sexuality and being in love with his best friend. He's wondering if he can ever be his true self in such a heteronormative culture. He is also learning upsetting things about relatives not many generations back who were subjected to the Swedish State's "racial biology" practices, classifying the Sámi as an inferior race.

All of this is told through an engaging coming of age story, with Ánte's friends and family at the center. The romance is not the main focus, other than the main character having feelings for his best friend and struggling with coming out. There are very sweet moments between the two though and maybe eventually something more.

Fire from the Sky is very well written with beautiful prose. The dialogue is a bit simple at times and the translation doesn't quite do the writing justice (I've read the book in Swedish before and gave it five stars), but overall this is a wonderful read that I highly recommend!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC for review consideration.

I am not exactly sure how to rate this book properly. At times I was not understanding what was going on, while other times I was really interested. I was in a reading slump, and was trying to get back into reading, and I think that might have an impact on this. This book was kind of short, so I tried out this book. Short books usually help me get back into reading.

I do think people should read this. It seems like there is a lot of potential, and I would go back to this in a few months, and reread it. It just was not the best time for me to read this, however, I definitely believe it is the perfect book for some people. Especially with how short it was

This is a quiet, gentle read with many hard-hitting and thoughtful themes. It's a soft novel and packed full of emotions, Ante's feelings are palpable throughout the entire book.

The cover of this is beautiful and it matches the writing style and quality.

I really enjoyed this, it's a lovely read.

Thank you to netgalley the publisher and the author for this chance to read.
First loves are not like this in real life. Sometimes they are messy and not worth it but with this it was worth it and so beautiful i went through so many tissues because it is a sore subject for me. Not in a bad way in an oh my god this is beautiful and im so happy for them. I 100% loved the storyline and the characters i would read again. Not anytime soon gotta calm down after this but i would read again and recommend.

This was a beautiful (albeit brief) coming of age YA. I really wish that it was longer so we could have seen more of Sami culture (not to mention actually have the race book conversation feel meaningful and not just a random inclusion), and also so we could have seen Ánte and Erik actually in a relationship. The ending felt very rushed and compressed to the point where it didn't feel the most realistic— everyone just seemed to get over their discomfort over queerness very quickly.

This book was beautifully done. I enjoyed the over all theme and plot. Some of the work was long winded but still a truly great.

Thank you so for letting me read this book.

Thank you NetGalley for the review copy!

What a surprise this little book was! very emotional and touching.
Loved the cultural aspect of the book. Highly recommend!

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book*

"Fire from the Sky" is a sweet yet somewhat predictable coming of age / YA story about a gay Sami boy struggling to come to terms with both his heritage and his sexuality: Are there gay reindeer herders?

I enjoyed reading the book even though I found the protagonist in both his passivity or headless angry moments a bit annoying. Some great ideas in this one, some slightly underdeveloped (the past in local memory vs the racist book or the godfather) and the ending felt rushed, but it's the first time I've read a queer YA book with a Sami protagonist and I learned a lot. An important book!

4 stars

A really interesting and sweet YA book about Sami life and queer romance, coming of age. I think the addition of the info about racial biologists who tried to show that Sami were inferior was also an interesting addition. A short read that drew me into this world!

omg inlove mlm books sm. The way everything happened had me hooked like aaaa
thank you netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review

Fire From the Sky, translated from the Swedish by Eva Apelqvist, is a young adult coming-of-age story about Ánte, a Sámi teen struggling to reconcile his desire to become a reindeer herder like his father and his impossible to ignore feelings for his best friend Erik. With no one around to model what life would look like for a queer Sámi man, he begins to think that leaving the village will be his only choice.
Ánte isn't always a great person, but it's understandable. He's a messy teen trying to figure himself out and how to balance his understanding of his identity with the traditions of his people. He's scared of ostracization, and sometimes takes it out on those he loves. His feelings are overwhelming and full-body and he just doesn't know how to manage them.
I particularly loved the relationship between Ánte and his grandmother, which makes up the crux of the book's B plot about the racist experimentation done on Sámi people and the intergenerational trauma it left behind. It's not an aspect of history that's much discussed, and it deserves its moment here. There's also a lot of homophobia in this book, both internal and external. It can be distressing to read when it comes from Ánte's friends and family, but despite these darker moments the book stays overall quite hopeful.
The writing sometimes felt a little choppy, maybe to do with being a translation, but it's a very quick, emotional read with short chapters that really fly by. And I LOVE that we're seeing more Sámi literature getting English translations.

"He had the right to this life, this culture. The roots went deep into the soil and he didn't want to cut them. No matter what others thought, he would always belong here.
Nobody else got to decide who he should be. Only him."

This was so, so close to 4 stars but didn't quite cut it. I wish this book had focused a little bit more on the Sámi culture and Ánte's relationship with it. Unfortunately, given how short this book was, it went unexplored, as did most other storylines.

It was kind of difficult to buy into Ánte's relationship with Erik because it was so surface-level. Ánte is an unreliable protagonist, yes, but it's never really made clear why exactly he fell in love with Erik. As someone else put it quite well in their review, Erik isn't much of a character. I'm not sure I can say much else about him other than he plays FIFA on console and he has a girlfriend who's the source of Ánte's envy.

Some of the plot points also felt quite tropey. A couple scenes in particular around the middle of the book felt like they were lifted from Skam and tweaked a bit to suit the book. I think if you were a fan of Skam or any of its iterations you might enjoy it.

While it touches somewhat upon homophobia in the Sámi communities, I wish it had been a bit more serious and thorough with the social aspects. I wish there was more exploration of the role of Sámi in historical and contemporary Swedish society. But this was, at the end of the day, about the romance – and I unfortunately found the romance to be the weak link.